SEO For Local Businesses: How To Rank On Google Maps

One of the best ways to get more traffic to your business is through utilising the ‘Google My Business’ section.

This allows you to get some free organic traffic to your website – thus, resulting in more leads and sales for your business.

But the question is; How can a small business like yours penetrate the Google My Business space?

That's what will be discussed in this article.

Ranking on Google Maps is not that difficult i.e. it’s just a matter of applying some few tactics.

Some of them includes:

Without further ado, let me jump straight into more detail.

1. Optimise Your NAP Across All Platforms

This is probably the first step that you need to take – in order to increase your chances of ranking on Google Maps.

If you're not familiar with NAP, it's basically your business Name, Address, & Phone Number.

Before Google sends traffic to your website, they want to ensure that you're a legitimate business – which is trustworthy to customers.

And in order to prove your legitimacy, you need to provide enough information about your business.

You should definitely put your business name, address, and phone number where possible i.e. on your website footer, about page, business directories, social accounts, etc.

That way, Google can develop some bit of trust with your business.

2. Claim Your GMB Listing

The next crucial step is to claim your Google My Business listing (GMB).

If you haven't claimed your listing yet, it's high time to do so.

By claiming your GMB listing, you can easily add your business operating hours, images, directions, etc.

It’s advisable to provide as much details as possible – since Google normally favours businesses with detailed profiles over those with shallow details.

3. Optimise Your Website For On-page SEO

Another crucial factor for ranking on Google Maps is on-page SEO.

Most businesses makes the mistake of writing something like ‘Hey There' or ‘Welcome', etc. – which is not ideal when you're trying to rank for Google My Business.

Instead, you should optimise your website i.e. through utilising the keywords that you're trying to rank for.

You should utilise your keywords in the title and description of your website – so that Google can better understand your business.

But obviously, you don't need to do ‘keyword stuffing' – since this might hurt your rankings in the long run.

4. Improve Your Domain Authority

Most small businesses ignore this, but domain authority is also crucial when it comes to ranking on Google Maps.

As always, Google favours sites with high DR over those with low DR for obvious reasons i.e. high domain rating proves that a business has more authority in that specific industry and vice versa.

Thus, you should also focus on building backlinks to your business website – so as to gain more authority in your industry.

Still on the same note, it's not about the quantity of backlinks that you get – but it's all about quality.

Thus, you should try by all means to get high quality backlinks to your business site – so as to improve your DR.

5. Seek Reviews

Another helpful strategy to rank on Google My Business is through getting reviews to your business.

You should always entice your customers to leave some reviews on your site – so that your business looks active.

Not only does this help to improve your GMB rankings, but it also helps to get more customers in the future.

Imagine, there's 2 listings on the results i.e. one with reviews and the other without any reviews.

Which one do you think gets more customers?

Obviously, the one with reviews gets more customers – since most clients prefers to work with businesses with previous track records i.e. which is proven by the reviews left by previous customers.

Thus, you should try by all means to get as much reviews as possible – but in a genuine way of course.

6. Promote Your Brand On Social Media

Another great strategy for ranking on GMB is through social promotion.

Businesses with strong social presence tends to rank higher on Google Maps – than businesses with weak social presence.

This is so because social presence increases brand awareness – which then leads to social shares, engagements, etc.

And guess what?

Social signals are also used by Google to rank businesses on the GMB listings.

Social signals acts as votes that people are engaging with your brand – thus, Google will rank your business site higher.

Thus, it is always advisable to do some social promotions – so as to boost your social signals.

7. Embed Google Maps On Your Site

Lastly, it is also key to embed Google Maps on your business website.

The reason being that, it provides more information to Google regarding your business – in terms of location.

And this can be easily done using some free WordPress plugins – which comes with this website builder.

By doing so, you can easily optimise your business site for SEO – thus, increasing your chances of ranking on Google My Business.

Wrapping Up

I hope that you have gained some value from this post, since l tried by all means to summarise these strategies.

Using these tips, you can easily boost your GMB rankings – without having to hire an expensive SEO expert.

The key is to implement the strategies ASAP – otherwise, you wont see any results if you don't take any action.

Although it might take some time to start seeing some results, you will see the positive effects in the near future – since Google takes time to pick up changes.

But please, don't try to do the black hat techniques that are preached by some fake SEO experts on YouTube.

These techniques might work in the short run, but can hurt your business in the long run – since Google is smart enough to detect sites which are trying to game the system.

Thus, you should do the right things and you'll reap positive rewards in the long term.

Let me know in the comments what you think about local SEO.

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